Reviews tagging 'Rape'

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk

341 reviews

owlribbon's review against another edition

challenging

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicide, Torture, Grief, Sexual harassment, and War

m_rain's review against another edition

On page 13 the author defends a r*pist. In the 13 pages I read, I did not see any critical thinking about the source of trauma, solutions to trauma, or the traumatization of society as we know it. The lack of depth and critical thinking from the author, along with the blatant disrespect for survivors of violence, has prevented me from reading this book any further. I do not recommend this book at all. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Misogyny, Racism, Rape, Sexism, and Sexual violence

mitziatratum's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful informative reflective sad medium-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Incest, Infidelity, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Medical content, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Medical trauma, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Abandonment, Dysphoria, War, and Injury/Injury detail

amyalwaysbooked's review against another edition

challenging dark informative reflective slow-paced

2.0

This one was difficult to review. I found the start of the book to be quite strong. There was some information about the brain and how it functions and how it responds to trauma that I found genuinely interesting. However, the book is repetitive. Van der Kolk would repeat anecdotal stories in different points in the book as if he had not already brought it up before. I found that jarring. And the stories themselves...

I know this is a book about trauma, but I did not expect him to go into such details of the personal traumas of multiple people. It felt gratuitous to me how often he would delve into the nitty gritty of a person's experienced trauma. I was expecting a book on the science of the brain and body's response to trauma, and while that was part of what I read, it was not the whole. I imagine this book would be especially upsetting for people who have experienced any extensive trauma. I also didn't love the ways in which can der Kolk often wrote about the people whose stories he shared. Women were often described physically, and the men were given a lot of slack for some of the horrible things they did because of their trauma. Except for one exception it often felt like he saw women as only victims of spousal or sexual abuse while men were only victims of military PTSD.

There were some excellent points made about the way the medical system in the US works, or rather, how it doesn't work. I appreciated how the lack of universal health care and better care for veterans and mothers only enables a vicious cycle of trauma. Unfortunately this also meant that a lot of what he was saying was "well here are some great ideas of what we could try, but there's no strong study behind any of it so maybe someday???"

I found the personal stories and van der Kolk's treatment of them to be far too distracting for any of the positives I found to be worthwhile. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Medical trauma, Stalking, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

embers_of_amber's review against another edition

challenging informative medium-paced

3.0

This book is a mixed bag. 
On one hand, there is a ton of practical advice and information. It explains a lot (treatments, how the DSM came about, how trauma was first studied and is still studied). 

Major problem though: it's written by an old white man and it reads very..biased. Inappropriate comments about patients, excusing war criminals, etc. It's also written in a more textbook like format. 

The epilogue was surprisingly progressive though. Trauma is political and an epidemic. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Incest, Rape, and War

aryelled's review against another edition

It's more focused on displaying trauma than understanding/helping. Feels like the author excuses the atrocities done by the traumatized just because they were traumatized themselves.  I think it has the potential to retraumatize more than help. I would not recommend it to anyone suffering from C/PTSD

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Domestic abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual violence, Violence, Suicide attempt, Murder, and War

bookthia's review against another edition

challenging slow-paced

2.0

This book was too much for me.  I am interested in how trauma affects people, both mentally and physically.  I am interested in approaches to treatment that are effective and cutting edge. I am particularly interested in how professionals (doctors, teachers, counsellors, clergy, and more) can perform their jobs through a trauma-informed lens. This book spent too much time detailing graphic details of trauma and insufficient time giving pragmatic information about how to aid people in our lives living through trauma.  Disappointing.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Incest, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Medical content, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Murder, War, and Injury/Injury detail

verygraceful's review against another edition

Extremely triggering and not very helpful, basically an

SA apologist book

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, and War

issyd23's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense slow-paced

2.0

Too boring 2🧠

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Body horror, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Gore, Incest, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Grief, Medical trauma, Murder, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Dysphoria

kathryn_reads_paiges's review against another edition

DNF. Yes, there are major content warnings for this book. And no, I don’t think subjects like rape, sexual abuse, and child abuse were handled with compassion. Far from it.

The story that quickly demonstrated this is when van der Kolk tells of a Vietnam veteran who was the sole survivor in his platoon from an ambush. His response? He raped a Vietnamese woman and killed children. Did his wife and children learn about this later? The author notes how this veteran had to temporarily live in a hotel so he “wouldn’t harm his family”…again sympathizing more with this man. Yes, what happened to the soldier’s friends is a tragedy, but the author is quick to excuse his actions. He even tells about how this man became a lawyer who successfully defended an accused murderer (hmm).

There were also some pretty upsetting stories of child death and car accidents early on. And I definitely didn’t need to hear about them while I was driving. The author spent a lot more real estate sympathizing with the Vietnam veteran than he did on, say, the mother from the one car accident. He mentions the Nazis in the first or second chapter but doesn’t condemn them, which I found suspicious, especially for a European author. 

Moreover, van der Kolk was fired from his own trauma center for creating a hostile work environment for women. 

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/renowned-trauma-center-fires-its-medical-director/

I understood what (I think) is the main takeaway before I even picked up this book: Our bodies remember trauma even as our minds try to repress it. If you’ve ever read an incredible novel about this or been to a decent therapist, you probably do, too. 

This book could be very triggering to anyone with PTSD and/or who has survived sexual assault or child abuse. Please read other critical reviews — I’m definitely not alone for DNFing for these reasons.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Car accident

Moderate: Violence, Xenophobia, Medical trauma, and War